Warning, this podcast contains spoilers for the premiere of HBO's The Last of Us. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosy Night, and welcome to X Revision, the Crooked Media podcast where we dive be to your favorite shows, comics, and pop culture.
In this episode previously and we're going to be digging into that wild Mandalorian season three trailer, the Baby's Back, the Baby's Bay, Baby's Back, And in the airlock we're going to be talking about that unreal premiere of HBO's The Last of Us, which I just cannot wait to talk about because it look.
I can't wait, it was so good. And of course this is an all at card podcast. And if you want to jump around and just pick the little bits you like, check the show notes and the timestamps for the topics that we talk about and where they are coming up. Let's get into that Mandalorian trailer in the previous sound first up, Okay, Mandalorian season three trailer debuted during Dallas Cowboys versus Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who which is why I tuned in also to see Tom Brady get stomped.
But man looks great, not a lot of new stuff from compared to the trailer that had been out there, but really really fun. Looks great.
The baby is back, The baby's back. Lots of vines, Mary Laurians.
Here is some just like in no order, some things that popped out to me, grief, cargo, the come up continues. He looks great.
I love call Weathers. I love to see it every day.
No one has looked more delighted to be in a role than Carl, Like every time I watch him, you can see him being like, can you believe this is this great?
Yeah? I love it. This is suer great. Hopefully he'll be directing some more episodes.
Yeah, the robes, like the fact that he seems to be in control of a significant power structure now is really cool.
That is great.
Yeah.
Also the armorer was that like flashbacks, are they going to be a major role again? I'm hoping that it's the latter, But it's really interesting. It's weird to say, oh, a lot of Mandalorians, because like there really aren't a lot of them, but yeah, we see that dinn is basically he's in a position where he's trying to reimagine what the Mandalorians can be outside of progressive side of death like something. And he's got to, you know, go back to Mandalaw because he took off his took off
his mask so he could go on the baby. Yeah, you know, so it will be very interesting to see for me. I love to see some weird alien races. So we had I have seen the a Kawakian monkey lizard aka Silatious Crumb. It wasn't Silatious Crumb probably, but I yelled Silatious be crumb. Uh. And then obviously I know in our discord people are like really excited, like is that Babu Frick? Is it Babu Frick? Well, there's two of them, but at least it's an Anzilin I
believe is what they're called. So I love Babu Frick. I'm happy to see it. I love to see some weird alien creatures me too. Also, I'm very interested. You know you talked about let's talk about like Anakin and Order sixty six and also like temple.
Uh we okay, so that's probably a battle droid that's cutting open the door. That said, I'm just going off of the color of the laser that appears to be cutting the door open. That's ITID I do wonder if we're going to see a de aged Anakin doing a lot of murder stuff, And it feels like to put that in the trailer sets up. We're gonna let you know how baby Yoda escaped. Of course, yeah, they know we're gonna tell you how.
They know what that evokes when they put that in the trailer. It evokes horror and terror. And yeah, well you know, Hayden's back now, so we could see it. You know, we we saw what they did with Luke, it would be much easier to do it with Hayden. And yeah, I'm I'm very excited. I love this show. I love the baby, you know, I love Patro. I'm so happy things are going so well for him right now. Like back where did share the trailer? I was just thinking, like,
good for him. I was like, coming off the back of like one of the best reviews, well, the best reviewed live action video game adaptation ever.
We'll get it. Yeah, yeah, get okay, Actually, let's just do that up. Next to the premiere of HBOS Last Us, we're stepping out of the airlock and into the broken down streets of Boston, looking better than ever, if you ask me to talk about the premiere of HBO Max Is the Last of Us adaptation created by Craig Mason and Naughty dogg ep Neil Druckman, starring Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsay as Ellie and A Turf as Tess, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, and more people that we haven't really
seen yet. Let's talk about this first. You mentioned it in the previously on there's been you know, the kind of tagline for this, or at least the media narrative is here is the video game adaptation that has broken the curse. Now, some have said, well what about.
So so I think the thing is to say animated, because like we've had.
All K live action live action right right, and and honestly, that's that is a big deal, because when you're talking about something like Arcane, it's I'm not I'm not trying to undercut how cool it was and how legitimately equality and great it was. Even if like you're like me, you're not a League of Legends person, it was great. You're still talking about a computer generated visual medium to another computer generated visual medium.
I was gonna say, the medium is a similar. So it feels the cousins.
I like that this is a completely different animal, and I was blown away. I was it to me, it was a lot like the House of the Dragon adaptation, in which we know a lot of the story. If you played the games, but both one and two you know where this goes. People have replayed the games. There's DLC, so people have played the games multiple times and for good reason. But this adaptation, it's not just like, you know, making the parts that wouldn't work as a television narrative work.
It's that they everything is really really additive and like House to the Dragon, even if you know the story, there's a ton of surprises there for you.
Yeah, I think that's really a great point. I'd say definitely. How so the Dragon comes to mind. Also, it reminds me kind of what they did with this Star Wars animated shows, where you're meeting these characters, but you're getting these huge moments of context and spending much more time with them. And I think, especially as we go in to the later episodes, that is going to be where this show really shines. But I thought the first episode
was so brilliant. I mean, we've talked about that cold open in the game, you know, quite extensively, and to be able to bring that to life here and make it even more heart wrenching even when you are not in control. Oh, which was our biggest question is how does this story feel when you are not an active part of it? And you know what still feels as moving and engaging and exciting as ever.
Okay, let's get into the recap. Episode one, when You're Lost in the Darkness, written by Craig Mason and Neil Druckman, directed by Craig Mason. We open in nineteen sixty eight on a talk show kind of like a fictional version of firing Line. There's a host. He's talking to a pair of intellectuals about a parent, you know, pandemic threats, epidemiological threats, the kind of things that keep them up at night. One of them mentions, hey, commercial travels, is
this really dangerous amplifying effect. You know, bacteria virus can be in Kenya and then it can be in Chicago, and it can go around the world very quickly. And the other one is a much more interesting and seemingly out of the box concern, which is fung guy. Unlike
viral or bacterial infections. Fun guy, he said, as can actually hijack the nervous system, and he uses LSD as an example, which the ergot fungus, which is the kind of like a natural basis for lysergic acid, which many surmise has caused like various mass freakouts in medieval times. I don't know if anybody's ever looked into this, but there's like, you know, there's these various like dancing plagues where like an entire village in medieval like Germany, just
like flip shared hysteria. So there's a lot of there's a lot of subposition that that ergot fungus caused that. And then he mentions these very specific funguses that attack ants and also wasps that hijack their their brains and basically turned them into puppets. And then he says, hey, yeah, obviously, like fungui can't survive temperatures at the the internal temperature of the human body and hotter. But what if the
work got hotter. And of course we know that the world will get hotter as we are living through it right now. And Rosie I was really struck by the decision to go in nineteen sixty eight, because it was really that was the kind of like consensus, the mass American consensus, worst year in American history before any of the years that have happened in our recent lifetimes. You know, like you had obviously Vietnam and the tet Offensive, and that was going terribly opening American's eyes to how were
they were not going to win that war? Not to mention the images of violence Street, you know, just like beamed into American households every single night. Martin Luther King was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated that year. There are riots that ensued. There was the Democratic National Convention, which turned into a police riot as the police just like viciously beat down protesters in full view of cameras.
Prague Spring. It was a really really chaotic and crazy year, and I think it makes sense that they would It's such a small detail, but really cool that they set that talk show in that year.
No, I love that. I think this is such a great expositionary opening where you have these brilliant performances and it feels very chernobyl, it feels very on the nose. There's like a tiny liess and I absolutely love the way that you start with the first intellectual who in our world he was right because guess what we lived through COVID and this the reason that it spread so fast was very much to do with commercial travel. So you have that little nod without it feeling out of
this world. But then you get to listen to somebody basically explain how the corterceps will work in a way that doesn't feel like an exposition dump later on. And I love the way that the beginning when he says fungi, people are laughing in the audience, but by the end when he makes the point about global warming and what if the world got hot, everyone just absolutely goes silent. And the talk show says to him, you know, well, what would happen if all of that happens? And he
just looks him and he says, will we lose? And you know, that's what we know, and we should mention.
I feel like I should mention. This is nineteen sixty eight fictional nineteen sixty eight, the first like official Exxon funded internal studies about what would happen when petroleum you know, byproducts are ejected hydrocarbon biproducts are rejected to the atmosphere
at a mass rate. Appeared in nineteen seventy seven. Their internal documents where they basically were like, oh yeah, we're going to get global warming like it predicted, and it was disbelievably surrealfically correct, Like those people have been looking at those studies again and they just knew and they did it anyway. Yeah, so that was only nine years in fictional world. After this, we open on Austin, Texas, two thousand and three, and here comes our cold opens.
I'm sure fans of the video game now are like leaning in as soon as we go here. We meet Sarah, a teenager. She wakes up her dad, Joel. It is Joel's birthday. Sarah's making him breakfast because it's her birthday. We get this wonderful feel for their relationship in which
Joel obviously the bread winner. You can tell he takes a lot of pride and feels a lot of pressure in providing for you know, this this family unit that they have here, but you can also tell that Sarah is taking care of him in a very particular emotional way and these kind of small moments and it's a really wonderful acted scene he's thirty six, which ages up Joel. I think a little bit from them, Yeah, it does.
And also like, I really just want to shower out Nico Parker here, who plays Sarah.
I'm like, man, I'm sad.
She is so brilliant and they found all these little ways, from the T shirt she wears that's from the game, to the way they light her, especially once you get into the car where there are these uncanny moments where you feel like you're in the game just visually. But she's so wonderful. I love this moment where it's kind of this Joel. Yeah, he's the breadwinner, he goes to work, but really Sarah is taking care of herself. There's this great moment when she's cooking him breakfast where he's like,
have you done your homework? And she just gives the scathing look.
He's like, what was it? A fractions?
And she's just looking at him like, you know, I've like, you don't even ask me this stuff because that's not your perview, Like you got to work till ten pm every night and you pay the rent and I make sure things around here get done, and it's that's those have such great chemistry.
That's a good call. It. It reminded me. It really resonated with me because I think, you know, my mom, with the help of our grandma, really raised me and my brother. And I was when it became clear that she didn't need to be like are you doing your homework? She just like checked out of it because it was like not it was not gonna be a you know, a big priority in terms of like the things that she needed to do on a day to day level. What like I can't remember. I think she stopped looking
at my report card, like in the fourth grade. She's like, Okay, got it, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to work now. Tommy arrives. Uncle Tommy arrives. Tommy a desert stored veteran. It's clear from this is a little bit of a fuck up. He works for Joel. Joel is keeping him employed via his contracting business.
I mean it was also like a little bit late. He missed the.
Brass it's the birthday bread like and also like Joel has like a time crunch. He needs to get out like at a certain time so that he gets felt time with Sarah. And here's Tommy fucking it up again. And as they're getting ready to head out, there's a news report on the radio, not a lot. It doesn't really mention anything other than the unressd in Jakarta and American citizens are being urged to leave, suggesting that whatever's happening is happening around the world.
Yeah, and I love this. There's a great moment here, another great little bit of character building where Tommy and Joel try and work out where Jakarta is and they both just have no idea and I little least. Yeah, I love the way that that shows, like this smallness of their life and before it has to expand into this kind of huge, epic kind of adventure of going across the country in this a totally new way. But of course Sarah knows, because Sarah is the students. Sarah, it's so good.
This is how you do exposition. This is how you do character building in a way that doesn't feel like, oh, you're just telling me how these people are.
Even a lot of dialogue, Like there's actually still a lot of and a lot of like eating and quietness and Tommy's putting something in. It doesn't feel like you're constantly being bombarded by prestige TV exposition. It very much feels like you're in the game. And something else that kind of blew my mind I wasn't expecting was the use of the handheld camera, which is such a huge part of the game and the visuals of the game.
Is that feeling of that shaky camp And as soon as we kind of follow Sarah up the stairs, we really get into that and you feel like you're in the game and you're controlling that character.
So Joel and Tommy head out to Tommy's truck. Sarah goes up to her dad's dresser. She gets a little bit of money out there. Maybe if you haven't played the game, you know, like Sarah, you wrap scallion, it takes a little bit money, but also takes his broken watch, a great recreation of the watch from the game, a
kind of field watch style watch, military style watch. And then also and I thought it was like a wonderful artistic flourish, she takes out his folding knife, which has this wonderful engravement of like horses running on the on the blade. You know, something that we will game players will know from the second from the sequel is, you know, the addition of horses and she just kind of sits with it and considers it for a little while, and it feels like this wonderful, like almost magical moment.
Yeah, it's that feeling as when you're a kid, you know. She runs her finger down the blade, like she's perceiving the knife and understanding in that moment, like everything's scary about it, everything about the danger of what it can do, but also the beauty. And it's just such a good
childhood moment. And it also very much feels once again like you're in the game and you've picked something up out of the drawer and you're looking at it, and she kind of gets distracted by the knife and is just staring at it until Joel starts bibbing the horn.
Yeah, you kind of get that.
Whoa she and she breaks out of her revery, and it's just a really great moment.
Yeah, it just is really really cool. So Sarah comes out and we meet the next door neighbors, an elderly woman named Connie, who seems like she clearly can't move on her own and is probably, you know, it's certainly suggested by what you see in the kind of throws of like dementia or something of that sort, and her son Buddy Garrity from Friday Night Lights, who we all love. They it's very clear that they are lonely. They invite
Sarah over that night to come just like hang out. Joel, you know, is lightly teasing her about it, and it's very clear that like neither of them want to spend any time over there, but also like Sarah through that, and it's a wonderful performance. Again, lets you understand what a warm and generous person. Yes, she doesn't want to go, but.
Yeah, she's hung out with them, She's kept them buy you know, she's kept them company, but she doesn't want to do it. Neither does Joel. I really feel for anyone watching this show who didn't know where this was going, because their report is such a brilliant fake out and they're so wonderful together.
Later in school, Sarah is sitting in English class when she notices, because of the reflection from a student's bracelet, that he's got a tremor.
Storytelling just really, don't do a seizure, you don't do anything again. It adds I love that use of the word magical that you say, because it really is this kind of magical realism that limin or space between, like is everything normal or is something huge about to change? It captures that feeling when you're a kid of like the the light in her face in class and I'm like, is it someone she's got a crush on is trying to communicate with her or something? And then I just see, well,
it's like it's just a little trauma. They didn't go all out, and it's just that Sarah is beginning to notice that things are something is wrong right.
And then as she as she leaves school and goes to get the watch fixed, here again is another hint of something big about to change. There are police cars racing around, and the repairman's wife comes out and basically shoes Sarah out of the shop. After only a few minutes. It's like three o'clock. They close at seven. She's like, no, no, no, we're shutting down. She clearly seems panicked, but in a
way where she doesn't want to alarm Sarah. Luckily, the repairman has finished his work and she just tells Sarah, go home, go home, Go home, Go home. Sarah ends up at the neighbors. Now as she's going to the neighbors there's military jets that kind of do a quick boom overhead, which, depending on what part of the country you live in, is maybe not a strange site, but you know, these kind of like clues are It was.
Definitely I was definitely catching some jokes about that they do. Again. They do such a good job this kind of walking through the suburbs with these huge jets booming. But as someone who has lived the last seven years in like the South Bay of LA, that's just my everyday life helicopter jet, I was like, I will never know when the zombie apocalypse is coming because it will just sound like normal. I'll just be like, oh, it's they're right again.
Yeah, even in La proper up where I am, you know, where the entire county is nestled between several huge military bases and there is constant traffic over so again we would not probably know I.
Would, but Sarah knows. And again I love, I really love you know. What I thought was so cool. I think a lot of times in movies, if you see a singular person, especially a child, and they're walking and above them are these kind of military jets that feels almost like a triumphant top gun esque victory moment, you know, and they subvert that. Here she's just so alone and terrified and she knows in our heart like something bad is going on, but just nobody else has noticed it.
Yeah, and again this is an example of how additive this show is. In the game, of course, we only get the scene where, you know, Joel wakes Sarah up and she presents him with the watch and he asks how she got it fixed, And you never really know this. The show uses the game almost as an outline to drop story beats in between these other beats which we already know about, and it does it in this really expansive,
wonderful way. So over at the neighbors, the Adlers, you know, she asks, hey, have you noticed anything that Miss Adler's daughter asks, have you noticed anything a strange going on? The woman essentially says no, and then it's like, hey, making cookies, raising cookies. It's God again, clear Sarah doesn't want those, but she's very, very kind and nice.
Okay, I need to say so, they're making the raisin cookies, right, Sarah goes into the living room. In my opinion, what is the scariest moment of the season. Very she starts to look at the DVDs right something that obviously we're meant to guess like it's two thousand and three, but she's kind of into them and she wants she wants to borrow a DVD. This is obviously part of the
reason that she's core with going over there, oh the hangover. Look, they have the hangover, And as she's picking a DVD, she is in focus and behind her, out of focus is the mother is Yea, and she begins to have a seizure, and you see just blurry in the background, and if you're not paying attention, you might not even see it, because Sarah is right there, in full focus looking at these DVDs with all the excitement of a
teenager looking at DVDs. And in the ground we see the mother's mouth open and kind of you know if you played the game what this means, But it's it's looking bad. It's looking bad, but Sarah, Sarah missed it. And Sarah gets out of this moment unscathed and asks to borrow the DVD, escapes the raisins, and heads out the house.
What she does notice is that the Adler's dog has taken a very keen interest in uh in missus Adler and is staring at her in a very unselling way. Later, Joel arrives home from work. He is an hour late. He seems very tired. There are issues at work that he's like, you don't care about this. He didn't bring the cake that he had promised to bring home. He had promised to bring it. He then promises again listen on my Life, I will get one tomorrow, which is
just so brutal. Sarah then pulls out the DVD, which is some kind of ninja action movie. Yeah, and you know it's one that he very clearly, you know, it was eager to watch. So they settle in to watch it. Sarah falls asleep. While she's a sleep, Joel gets a call from Tommy and Tommy has been arrested very clearly again and he needsbody to bail him out because it's Friday, and if Joel doesn't come bail him out tonight, that's it. He's in there for. She's in county for lock up
for you know, the entire weekend. And Joel leaves, leaving Sarah at home in the gathering dark. And it's in that time about two am, little after two am that shit really starts to go wrong. Sarah wakes up to the sound of helicopters, the sound of you know, various electrical infrastructure exploding, other explosions. She Carl alarms, dogs barking. She wakes up, turns on the TV only the emergency broadcast message, which is very concerning. Yeah, and then things
just happen with a gathering and terrible momentum. The Adler's dog shows up. Sarah's like, what you know, it's panicked. It runs away from her. She goes to check on the neighbors. They are dead or mortally wounded. And Connie Adler, the seemingly elderly and infirm woman, is like hunched over her daughter or daughter in law, just doing something horrible with strange tentacles coming out of her mouth. Sarah flees
right into the path of Joel in Tommy's truck. They are pulling up clearly like they are very panicked as well. Tommy has a fucking rifle out, so he's yeah.
Joel hits Missus Adler with a massive wrench like, yeah, they know something is going down. I think this is a really smart When Sarah wakes up, we're talking about something that is almost directly taken from the game. That is the moment when you were in this is the part where this is the part and you're walking around the dark house and you're looking for your dad. In the game, she's woken up by a phone call from Tommy.
But I really like this added context that they bring to Joel and Tommy's relationship here where the reason Joel is out is not because of work, it's because he's getting Tommy, and she's woken up just by the general chaos of what occurs. But in this moment that she gets outside and you see Joel and Tommy come together to protect her, you see a different side of that
brotherly relationship. These two can do anything together, including just like absolutely wreck someone like this is not the first time they've done that, though, it is the first time they've probably done it to his zombie.
Yeah. Tommy ends up shooting Missus Adler, which is shocking to Sarah and certainly shocking to Tommy and Joel, who have no idea what is happening. They flee in the truck. Various things happen, the truck ends up, and this is the part, and this is so this is the part Yeah, this is the part of the episode that is like
ripped almost directly from the game. There's the one shot where they're driving up to an intersection and and Tommy is saying, what do we doing, Joel, and Joel's like, Okay, we're gonna take seventy one, We're gonna get out of town, and that it is almost shot.
Yes, shot, And then when you see and when you see Jimmy's house on fire, yeah, that's exactly Jimmy's house. And then you get to that moment that we were talking about so much on our last Last of Us episode where we're talking about the game, where Tommy's trying to navigate his way through these crowds of people who are trying to survive and Joel is just saying, kill them, run them over, don't care to do it.
We got to do it.
Same as that moment that we talked about that says so much about Joel where he won't help the family with the kids. You know that happens in the show. It's very interesting and much to the show's credit, how well they have managed to cherry pick the moments that make you feel like you're directly in the game. Just as you might be getting a little bit out of
the direct canon of the game. They just go boom, throw back in to a moment and this is so well done, and you get that Sarah shots of her looking all around, seeing everything that's going on.
Play it off her face really wonderfully, and it's a testament again how high quality that game is that you can scoop an entire scene out and have it be you know, Triple A television.
And they set up something here that I feel like really comes through in the car that then is definitely brought through to the kind of the next part of the show, which is that they begin to start lighting it very much like the game in that moment. You feel there are moments when you're looking at Nico Parker's face and it just feels like you're in that uncanny space of being in the game because of the way
that they light it. And as this kind of continues and then you get to that you know, the time jumper we're going to get to from then on, there are so many moments where if you pause your TV. It was like watching Sin City for the first time. When I watched that movie, it would pause it and it would just look like the comic and this is like that, where, especially in this moment and then later when Joel and Test begin to kind of go around
and look around the quarantine zone. There are so many moments where if you pause them, you're like, is it just from the game? Is it just from the game. They're so good at building the me's un scene in the cinematography and then adding this kind of lighting and I'm sure filters that make you feel like it without it ever feeling too much.
Yeah, so you know that it unfolds slightly differently. If we get a big plane crash that is what causes the Tommy's truck to wreck, Joel and Sarah are separated from Tommy. Sarah is injured, Joel has to carry her. Chased by infected, they rush down to the riverside where they all agreed they would they would meet Uncle Tommy there and a gunshot rings out taking down the infected
that's chasing Joel and Sarah and it's a soldier. And here is the moment again almost played directly from the game, where you know, Joel and carrying Sarah like we're not sick, we need help, and the soldiers like, no, don't move, and then radios for confirmation about what to do. And I thought this was whoever this voice actor is great performance from this person because you get a little bit more of the When the soldier gets the order and goes,
I'm sorry, could you say that again? You at least feel like, Okay, this is really fucked up, and everybody understands how fucked up this is. But also a testament to how really dire this situation is that the only thing that anybody can come up with is don't let this infection spread by any means necessary. You take people down. And so gunshots, you know, the soldier opens fire. Joel
is grazed, but of course Sarah is mortally wounded. Tommy shoots the soldier and we get a really heartrending scene of Sarah expiring in Joel's ars almost before and this is another great, another great little moment. She dies and he misses it. Yeah, he's like he looks away and he doesn't see it. And it's such a microcosm of their relationship exactly.
And the thing that I love again, if we're talking about like character beats in moments, Look, Tommy might be the fuck up, but at every point, it is Tommy who is coming in clutch. At the last minute, Tommy's the one who shoots the soldier. The soldier is about to shoot Joel just in the face. Tommy shoots him, and then it's Tommy who notices that Sarah dies. Yeah, but it's Joel who's holding her. Joel's just he's trying
to get her up. He's gonna save her. It's gonna be okay, and she's on his shoulder and he misses it. But Tommy sees just so many interesting that could seem like I do have so that you know, Joel doesn't die, but it never reads like that. It just says, these are this brother's relationship and it is extremely fucked up, but this is just how it's always been. And in that moment again, like you said, Joel misses this huge moment. It's that it's the note from the game. You know,
it's be back later, dad, without the love. It's all the little things he did that didn't that are going to haunt him after Sarah's untimely death. Just huge. Just shout out to Nico Parker.
Yeah, a cool detail.
I'm like, please please bash flashbacks like she is so brilliant, So yeah, I would love to see it.
X ray Vision will be back, and we're back. We
jumped to Boston twenty years later, twenty twenty three. A young boy in what we are going to discover is kind of mid stages of infection, staggers to the gates of the Uarantine Zone formerly Boston's North End, one of several areas run by the FEDRA authorities what's left essentially of the US government, and after some very cursory tests, I mean, it's clear by looking at the kid, they show a sign about like the timeline of infection, which is basically, you're infected and then a day later you
are a full on, raving zombie. And there are various stages along the way where you can tell by tremors in the limbs and etc. And it's clear that this boy is in the throes of this, and a soldier, Nils, tells him some you know, wonderful platitudes and then they inject him with some killing serum and bye bye.
I was absolutely just flabbergasted, is the only word. Yeah, that is like the only word. How do you follow the Sarah Cold open, which is we've talked about everyone's talked about one of the best cold opens of all time. How do you follow something that heartbreaking with this double gut punch of one of the most horrific It's it's so sad and it's so well done. Like you said, you know this soldier, this kind of federate agent who seems to be like part cop fuck part kind of soldier.
You know, we see this test and it goes red. You know, red is bad, green is safe, Red is danger. And she stands and she says, you know, once you're better, we're gonna get you all these toys. What's your favorite food, You're gonna be able to eat it. Don't worry. He's just given you an injection. Medicine's medicine, and then you know, boom, he's just a dead body in the back of the
van about to get burnt. I mean, that was that to me, was the kind of grim and gritty, like bleak reality of the apocalypse, this kind of post apocalyptic world that the Walking Dead often strove for, but it was very rare that they would hit it in that way emotionally to me, And I just thought that was so well done and just absolutely horrible.
Not to make this a Walking Dead criticism fest. But you can't help in that moment where the boy comes to the top of a rise and you see Boston spread up before him, to not make the comparison. I it in my mind immediately flash back to the Walking Dead television show, of course, and I thought, the one detail there, it's small again, but it's so good, and shouts to the production designers and the wardrobe people. His taped up shoes. Yeah, we're not making new shoes, you know.
And so here are these like scavenged pair of basketball shoes with the soles taped to the upper using packing tape that he's shuffling forward in.
And then like, you know, that was such an intentional choice that like super produced. A soldier said, when we see his body, the shoes are the thing that let us know it's the kid. It's like the size of his body, his red T shirt. But those shoes, that's when you really know, like, oh, they just they murdered that kid.
Yeah, so after we and honestly, what choices they have. I don't know.
It's a complex conversation, but let's let's put a pin in it. Slash. Let's remember this moment because this is a this is a moment that this is.
The central conversation of the central conversation.
Of this show. Who decides who gets to live and die in a zombie apocalypse? Is this virus a dangerous thing that is killing humans? Yes? But is it also an evolutionary part of nature? Is this just kill or be killed? Is this Darwinism? And who gets to make those decisions? And also, as we'll know when we meet Ellie soon, we don't necessarily know how everyone's gonna respond to a bike, so they it's a really brutal moment.
But like you said, this has kept the quarantine zone relatively safe for twenty years.
So when next we see this young boy's body, it's it's being carried from a truck by Joel and dropped into a fire to incinerate it, along with dozens, it seems of other bodies, people who have died from infection and from other reasons. And there is Joel. He's now fifty six, and this is how he earns his ration cards,
which are the currency of the quarantine zone. You go out, you go out for daily work, whatever needs to be done around the quarantine zone, whether it's you know, going down on the sewer and cleaning it out or street
sweeping or what have you. But of course Joel, also on the side, has a thriving criminal enterprise with his now obviously lover changed from the game, it's only suggested that she's his romantic partner with his partner Tess, who together they you know, are active in the kind of like smuggling networks that keep the QZ going, and that clearly happen with the connivance of various members of the quarantine zone authorities, as we see later when Joel sells
some hydro pills manufactured in a FEDERA facility down in Atlanta to a guard in exchange for cigarettes and some ration cards plus a car battery to be delivered later that Joel needs for something we're not sure now. Of course, Federa is not the only force in the zone. There's also the Fireflies. We see their graffiti all around, and they are an armed militia dedicated to where later to
find out, bring back democracy again. Their aims are kind of just like feder is evil and we need to overthrow them, and they actually what they're their political agenda is hard to pin down. Similarly, but the hints that we get are tantalizing.
Yeah, fed is basically a fascistic dictatorship that is keeping the people in these quarantine zones because it's easier for them and they can make money off it, and they can run their little you know, uh executions, and they can run their little you know, smuggling rings and everything. And Fireflies are kind of just at this point like a general revolutionary militia. Like we know, if you've played the game, you know kind of what their main names are.
But like you said, this idea of kind of a generic idea of democracy coming back and the idea that there is something that Federer hiding from people.
The guard later warns Joel to stay off the streets because apparently feder is really going to start cracking down on the Fireflies very very soon. And the guard essentially says, hey, mistakes happen, We're going to just shoot anybody we see, so stay off the street. Elsewhere we meet tests, and in a great reconfigure of the storytelling from the game, test is being held by Robert, who is another one of these kind of you know catches, catch can criminals,
and the QZ zon a smuggler. He's got his henchman, uh you know, standing around her. She is sitting on a chair, she's got a fresh black eye, clearly bruised up. They tuned her up significantly. But the dynamic is fascinating. Robert has very clearly ripped Tests off on a deal for a car battery not delivered the car battery, you know, clearly the one Joel was interested in. But here's the dynamic. Robert has Test prisoner, but he's very very obviously frightened
of her and her retribution, frightened of what tests end. Joel. He just says, you know, the person you're with, what they might do if they harbor this grudge on this on the on the on the deal that he is double cross them on. And he's basically saying, okay, Test, listen, can we just can you just forgive me that I fucked you over? Because just do it please, like walk out of here and we're fine. And Tessa is basically like, don't worry about it. Yeah, sure, sure, it's fine, listen,
like you know, and he's like Robert. It's really funny because at one point Robert is like, but my guys, they beat you up and she's like yeah, but like.
Just fucking yell it's done, man, it's done.
Yell at you reprimand them yell at him, like, go yell at him right now, you guys.
Yeah, And you know.
The discussion, however, is cut short when there is a huge explosion that blows out the wall of this dungeon that that that Robert is this basement of an apartment complex that Robert is holding tests in and this is a firefly attack against federal forces. Test escapes but then is quickly scooped up by FEDRA and we cut to elsewhere for a firefly safe house in which we see
a young girl chain to a radiator. And this is Ellie going under the name of Veronica, you know, trying to hide her identity somewhat real name Ellie, but telling everybody that her name is Veronica right now. And these various people that are coming in are testing her for the symptoms of infection. Do you you know count to ten? Do you know, put your arm out and hold that
no tremors her. Her thinking is completely clear. She flips them off and it's a really really cool, unexpected introduction to one of the main characters of this show, and I thought that, you know, the same thing with the Tests and Roberts scene, where very very smartly, Mason has giving you the beats of the things that happen in those first few chapters of the game before you think you're gonna get them. The explosion doesn't happen at the checkpoint.
It happens right there when Robert and Tess are having their discussion, and you don't even you know, in the game you find Robert at the end of like this kind of long string of fights and missions, but you get it early, and then here you meet Ellie early. It's really really well paced and well done.
Yeah, I love those. I also love this because we know that this is another great sleight of hand. We know from playing the game that both Tess and Joel are killers. They have to be to survive, and Tess especially seems to have a very brutal outlook on what you need to do. They do a really smart thing where once again they sellb your expectations. Oh, these are the heroes, even if they have to do things that you know, sell drugs, those things that now we know
are not some morally wrong things. They're just to do with situation. And the way that you live. And this is a very interesting exploration of this new economy and what people have to do is to survive. But we know that when things get going, we're going to see this different side of them. And I find that very interesting because this is a kind of even after that wild opening, this is a very slow burn episode in the Quarantine film. This is knowing where things are. That
explosion that happens. Test just takes that in her stride. You know, this is happening a lot like these attacks are happening, and it is so interesting just and that moment of you know Tests, you know, yeah, yeah, we'll talk about in a minute.
Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, the it's wonderful how they set up how deadly Tests and Joel are just by Robert being fucking exactly exactly.
It's so smart. We don't need to do a ten minute chasing. We don't need to kill fifty people in the first opening of the show.
That scared. Also, he has this woman in his clutches and he's kicked chair and he's scared.
I will say as well, something I think is very smart about this first episode that I think is very interesting and quite a brave choice to not focus on that POV shoot him up aspect of this game.
I agree, it goes away from that very consciously in various moments when you think it's gonna go to.
That, and it's very interesting, and then I'm sure you know we will get those moments in later episodes because this is an apocalypse that is similar to what we would know as zombies. It's this Quarter Sceps apocalypse, So you're gonna have to kill some monsters, You're probably gonna have to kill some soldiers, which we know from what we've seen in the opening Joe won't have a problem
doing because they killed his kid. But I love that instead of it going straight there, which I have to say so many action games, that is often the focus of the adaptations that we've seen in live action, which I think can be part of the problem, and instead we get this ultimate world building that brings in the characters early on Ellie test Robert in new ways. But that still feels very much in line with what we love about this game.
Yes, it's so good. We see Joel skipping a huge line of people waiting to go sit down with a Ham radio operator, which is apparently the only means of communicating beyond the walls of a really really wonderful bit of world being Hey, you're skipping the line, but nobody does want nobody wants to step up to Joel is clear that he just has a very very dangerous aspect. He sits down with the operator, who clearly knows him
and has talked to him quite a bit. The cigarettes that he bartered for are for this guy, and the guy basically says, hey, nothing, no messages from Tommy. I'm sorry. I've been sitting here when I'm not sitting here. My wife is sitting here, wife sitting here, my son is sitting here, and not the stupid one, the smart one is sitting here, and there's been no messages at all.
And the operator pinpoints for Joel the last known position that Tommy had, which was this radio tower that was communicating with Boston, and it's all the way out in fucking Wyoming, and Joel's like, great, I'm going there. I guess I don't have to go there and find out what happened to Tommy. And the operator is like, no, no, no, no, Joel, what it's three the way yeah, across the country. And he says the thing that is, you know, the the basic thesis of every single zombie story. There are worse
things out there than the infected. And it's us. It's slavers, it's raiders, it's the various depraved human beings that, either because of their own needs for survival or because any kind of societal check on their depravity has been removed currently run things in those wastelands out there, don't go. And Joel's like, well, I think I'm gonna go. So he goes home. He goes to a hiding place and takes out his map and a crowbar and an axe,
some various weaponry that he needs. There's a great moment where the camera switches from Joel kneeling at his hiding spot to the bed, and then it pans down and you see that the bed is on cinderblocks, and it's a really cool small moment where it's telling you that all kind of steel that can be repurposed for weapons or anything like hard metal has been scavenged from this. It's gone. It's gone. Joel has certainly repurposed that stuff himself.
And then Joel downs a bunch of oxy and a bunch of zone alcohol and he passes out and I'm like, Joel, man, you're fifty six, bro, you.
Need take a break.
You need to slow it down. Please. When he wakes up Tests there, he sees her injuries and he's alarmed. She lies to him about some of the details about what happened, but then tells him, hey, I was also locked up by by Fedra and then says, okay, now here is the thing that happened, and basically tells him that, yeah, Robert double crossed us for the battery, which means no truck, which means no going to get Tommy. And Joel is
fucking irate. But Tess and here you're getting a wonderful understanding of their interplay, and it's a good subversion of the game, in which Tests is the psychomaniac killing everybody. Here is Tess being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Joel, calm down. If you walk out of here half cocked looking for Robert, he's terrified of you. He is going to freak out and he is going to flee and we're never going to fucking find him. So to cool down, act like
nothing is wrong, nothing is bothering you. So that we can find out where Robert is and we can fucking kill him.
Uh.
And it's again a wonderful kind of subversion of the test character where she's kind of like the headier one but also a killer, still a killer.
I love that she like you. It starts at this really tender moment where she gets into the bed and like Spoon and Sam and you kind of see this cuddle and then they just quickly get to that talk about it. That's the that's the pillow talk in the house.
Yeah. We go back to the safe house and we meet Marlene, the Firefly leader uh, played by Merle Dandridge, who, by the way, the same voice actor and and uh, you know mocap actor from the game. So really cool moment. They yeah. Yeah, she gets some very very tough questions thrown at her by her lieutenant Kim. Why are we attacking the Feds for no reason? This is pointless, you know, like why is there a random girl chain to a radiator in there? Marley is like, Okay, everybody, get out
of the fucking room. And then she tells Kim that the attacks on Federa are to lure Federer away from the safe house. That they are at right now. They're happening all over the zone but not here. And secondarily,
the girl is important and here's why. And then she hands Kim a note that was I guess sent from another firefly safe house, not in the zone, but like across the state, which we're gonna guess right now, is like some sort of laboratory, you know, like there are scientists involved with the fireflies.
There's somewhere there's a lab where people are moving towards this idea of a cure. But then not feder people that fireflies.
Right, and so whatever is in that note, it's clearly big because him is like, oh shit, whatever you need, like I get it now, Like we'll do it elsewhere. Tess gets the location for Robert's battery deal and it's a building that they remember and they know how to get to, is accessible via the subway tunnels. Back at the safehouse, Marlene gives quote unquote Veronica, who we knew was Ellie her pack back. Here's this wonderful peace offering. Right.
The pack contains her switchblade, which Ellie eagerly leaps to, gets it right in her hand, telling you this is what this world is. This is a girl that knows nothing other than.
This literally grew up.
This is.
This, well, this is it.
And Marlene then explains to Ellie that it was she that placed Ellie at the Fedra Military Academy, basically an orphanage where they train kids to eventually be federal soldiers slash cops all those years ago. And this brings up some really really fascinating questions like is Marlene ex Federa or the Fireflies ex fed Yeah?
Yeah, exactly?
Yeah?
Are they a breakoff group of a Federa that was trying to find a cure and then feder kind of went corrupt and changed and changed, so they broke off?
And has have the Fireflies been earmarking kids for something like this? Suggestion that they are involved in some way in Ellie's life from the very beginning is fascinating and it feels like a thread that we're gonna unschool more and more like is is this firefly mission towards a cure? Has? Is it more planned out than this seemingly ad hoc Oh, we found this girl and now we we need to move her someplace? Is there a plan that has been
kind of in motion for a while? It suggested here and it's fascinating.
I think that's a really important thing to note, especially because this is a very interesting addition. Again, I will point people towards the girl with all the gifts that came out kind of contemporary to this. This sounds almost directly inspired by the setup of that book, where we meet a bunch of kids in a school classroom who are being taught in a kind of military school, and then you come to learn something about them. So I
love this. I think, as we know where this is going because we played the game, and the game is heartbreaking and amazing, are we very interested to see what the implications of this are because they could be really really massive, and they could also either add to or take away a little bit from that.
Yeah, it's it's a dangerous play for sure.
Yeah, so I'm very interested, but I'm excited to see it, especially because Marlene is so great just in this week. This is like really the first time we've gotten to meet her, and you really get that connection between Ellie and I want to know more. I want to know if they were picking kids, if there was some kind of study they did, some kind of DNA that they were looking for it's very interesting.
We get to mention here from Marlene of Riley, who is a character from the Last of US DLC and who we know from that game had a very close relationship with Ellie, and it's very clear that Riley has has died somehow. Marlene is using Riley's example to say, hey, was Riley a terrorist? Because you know Ellie' is like, oh, the firefly terrorist. She's like, what was Riley a terrorists? Like, we're not terrorists, and then she later tells Ellie the
reason for all this trouble. Ellie is the only known person who has been infected with the Cordysps fungus who has not become a zombie, did not fall ill, is seemingly immune. Huge huge deal Elsewhere Tess and Joel or in the subway tounnels, where we see what happens to you after the kind of zombie phase of the cordyceeps
infection has run its course. You basically just turn into a mushroom, a disgusting mushroom that explodes out of your body and glues you to whatever surface your corpse happened to explode next to. It's this very body horror thing again. This very aliens alien kind of like look of being like molded into a surface and it's super super gross. And notably Tess hard Ass is terrible, like is jump scared when she sees it.
She is jump scared. It's it lets you know that even within the quarantine zone, where these people are battle hardened for twenty years, there are things that can shock them. There are things that being chilled to kill a man for some pills, that's not going to stop you being scared by the fact that there is a nightmarish mushroom fungus that could take you and turn you into a
wall decoration. You know. It's it's terrific. And I love this because I also think it leans in again to that question that we talk about, which is like this nature evolution, Like.
Yeah, this is also this scene great addition by subtraction. So in the game here, this is your first encounter when they go into the tunnels, your first encounter with the spores and what to do. Your characters take out gas masks and you walk through the spores and you're non infected, which never made sense because like the spores, you take off the gas mask, the scores are still all over your close hair, you're gonna still gonna breathe
them in. So very wisely, Mason and drug Ben for the adaptation, have done away with the fucking gas mask and now it's zombie stuff direct bite, but like right, yeah, yeah.
Seems like from Ellie's arm and from what we see that it's some kind of bite, some kind of blood situation, like like well classical zombies.
Yes. Tess and Jol arrive at the building and guess what, it's the Firefly safehouse.
Uh.
They discover that a gunfight has broken out and Robert, along with a number of Fireflies have been killed. Robert died man doing what he loved, trying to fuck it, double cross somebody. It turns out the busy tries out a bust and battery.
It turns out to the battery didn't work.
And and the Fireflies were like, hey, we're not buying this, and a gunfight broke out and they all died except for Marlene, who is gut shot very seriously wounded, and Kim, who doesn't have an ear anymore. Folks, these are not exactly the Navy seals. The funnest like why just a quick aside, big you know, top secret safe house. We're launching attacks all across the zone to draw federal away. Why are you doing this here?
Why?
Why?
An your battery has like your shitty high dout that just got blown up, Like go there, Like why did you bring this man who loves the double Cross people to your secret safe house where you're keeping the salvation? Please?
Hey, let's let's do the deal. Let's do the deal in the hallway outside where we're holding Ellie, Like, let's do it. Do What the fuck are we doing anyway? With the fireflies based at this safe house, there's other fireflies, but they, you know, the ones based here now apparently wiped out, Marlene has no choice but to offer Joel and Tess, who she knows are hard asses, very capable,
She says, offer them a deal. If they will take Ellie to a group of fireflies waiting across the city at the old state House outside the Quz, she will provide Joel with a truck with gas, with the fucking fresh battery in the truck, guns whatever they need to make their journey to Wyoming to go find Tommy. Now, Joel tests is like, do you trust her? And of course no at all. In this world clearly does not trust her. But we get a few pieces of information.
One that Marlene knows not only knows Joel from reputation, but knows them because Tommy was a firefly. And this is a point of contention between Joel and Marlene, who Joel feels turned his brother against him in some form of fashion. Oh we should also mention that in this moment, Ellie comes bursting out and gives you an idea of the fight fierceness that she has. It comes bursting out of her room, switch blade at the ready, and Joel just like throws her into a wall. She just.
Like he does not care. She is nothing to him, a sandbag. He just throws her in and then Joel's like toying with her, keeping her knife. You know, it doesn't set up a particularly great rapport between the two, but it shows us a lot about Ellie. And another thing this episode does is keeping one of everyone's favorite things about Ellie, which is like she curses like a drunken sailor, and they kept that in there. And to see Bella Ramsey who's just was so great as Leanna
Mormot and is now just bringing that same attitude. But even more so. It's it's just wonderful to see it. But yeah, when Joel throws out against that wall, I mean you feel the impact.
Yeah, they are wonderful in this role, and I like that. Just like the introduction of Ellie and Joel in the game, the show kind of throws the moment away a little bit, like maybe in Lesser Hands there'd be this instant Joel looks at Ellie. Yeah, it's a girl about the age. Joel's seen teenage girls before, like you've seen children the age of his his daughter. There, it's it's a throwaway moment. I think that makes the relationship that grows between them
even more impactful later on. So yeah, Test smells desperation, understands that Marlene needs them and also has access to shit that they want. So Test steps up, makes the deal, says, Okay, listen, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take her. But if we get to the spot and the fireflies then want to take us to another place to give
us the shit, we kill Ellie right there. The fireflies that we're meeting need to have the truck, the guns, the battery, everything right there, so we can leave right there and if that isn't ready again, we execute Ellie and Marlene's like great, good, yes, and Elly's like wait, hold on that sorry, So they all leave. Joel takes Ellie to his apartment and puts her inside, while Tests and Joel stay outside the hallway to kind of discussed
like what happens next. In that brief time, Ellie breaks Jewels smuggling code that he has hidden in a book of pop music hits. The only part of the coach she doesn't figure out in this moment is what eighties music means. Joel comes back, Test goes off to get supplies, and Joel immediately falls asleep, a nice inversion of the you know the opening scene in which it's Sarah that falls asleep and Joel Let's says away Joel immediately nods off.
When he wakes up, Ellie is telling him that he mumbles in his sleep, uh, And she's looking out at the rain and kind of reflecting on how she's never been beyond the walls of the QZ. She asks Joel, have you been out there? And she's he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, Test and I go. The last time we went is about a year ago, so Ellie is somewhat put at ease by this, feeling like, Okay, I'm with people who
theoretically know what they're doing. And then she very very capably bamboozled Joel into revealing what the eighties code means. She says, oh, by the way, oh sorry, yeah, yeah, I forgot to mention when you're asleep the radio came on, What does wake me up? Before you go?
Go mean?
And Joel his head goes down and he's like fuck, And that is how Ellie realizes, Aha, eighties music means trouble letting, you know that. Like for for the obvious kind of like naivete and lack of experience that she has in this world, she's also very very capable, fierce and as thinker, smarter than Joel in a.
Lot, very cunning, and she's definitely had to work out ways to survive that. Yeah, Belie her kind of small stature. You know, she has the knife, but really it's the smarts that have probably gone this far.
So Test returns and everybody heads off, and of course we understand from an earlier scene that you get caught outside the wall, you get hung. It's no trial. They string you up. Outside, it's raining. It's a dark and stormy night. They encounter pissing against the wall, the same guard that Joel has been selling pills to. And now the guard decides, you know what I'm doing, shit by the book.
Now I know that I like it, and I.
Understand that I've been involved directly involved in various smuggling schemes throughout the zone. But now we're bringing you in. Neil, put your hands behind your head, et cetera. I'm going to test you in for infectually. He tests Tests Green, then he tests Joel Green, and we can see the panic rising in Elley. She doesn't want she knows she's going to test red, and she doesn't want her cover
blown about what's going on with her. So as he places the device to her neck, she takes out the switch plate and stabs him right in the fucking thigh. Shit pops off. Joel is and Tests are trying to talk him, hey, like, don't don't do anything rash, don't do anything crazy, and Joel flashes back. Because of the direct parallels, here is this guy in soldier gear again. He's flashing a light in his face, holding a gun to a child. The child is right here with him,
and he just snaps and he kills a guy. Uh after, right after that happened, test notices that on the handheld testing device that Ellie tested red and now Ellie and now everything is out in the open, and and Ellie is showing them the scar from the bite that is healed over and now three weeks old. And she's saying, listen, I'm not if I was gonna get sick, it would have happened a long time ago. I'm not sick. I
know what that looks like. But look this held and anyway, we need to get out of here because Fedro's coming.
Test wants to turn the head but Ellie, Ellie talks away out of it.
It talks away out of it, and the three head off into the darkness as the camera kind of pans up and you see the destroyed skyline of Boston's back Bay with like the I think that's the insured, the famous like the insurance building like toppled into another building. And they head off into this really gathering darkness that just feels terrible and dangerous just by looking at this skyline.
And we go to Joel's apartment where never let me down by Depeche Mode nineteen eighty seven comes on the radio, and you know that wherever whoever is sending that it's going wrong, it's going very, very wrong. And we head into episode two woo whoa, that's how you do it.
That's how you do it. It's so good and I love I love the ending where they use this musical beat that just set up a moment ago as a funny character moment to just tell you they're like they're fucked, like this is going badly. Whether it's not just from the people that they're getting these messages from, which I think people will be really excited about. It's like I think they were talking about Bill and Frank, you know, so this is kind of stuff that people really want
to see. But also just as a tone setter for the show, like this is gonna end badly, something that I will say Joel does say many times he knows the way it's going, he just doesn't know which way it's going. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I've said this many times, right, I no surprise thing. I love a lot of video game adaptations. I think there's a lot of fun ones. I think I think there's ones that are quite actually
quite good. I think that I love the campiness of Conic, but oh, oh my god, well, I will say, actually, I just Sonic would generally be seen as that. I'm I'm a fan of the great I love the Nighties, More Combat Movie, I love Double Dragon movie with Marke like those are really fun. Well, but this as a feat of adapting a story and a tone, we haven't really seen anything like this in live action. It's pretty
spectacular and I'm really excited. We got a little bit of it in the quarantine zone, you know, those quiet moments, the overgrown weeds of kind of the in the city. But I'm really excited when we get to see outside the quarantine zone with these fallen buildings and the overgrown wildlife, and getting to have a few more of those quiet moments of nature overcoming and nature coming back even after
this terrible thing. I think they did an unbelievable job with this, and I'm also really glad that they didn't drop more than one episode because I think this is like a really great water cooler. Everyone will be talking about it. It's been very nice.
It's in it raced by Oh my god.
I was shocked.
I did not realize.
I just assumed it was a normal episode and I was like, what, and it's It's been really cool to see people in our discord who've never played the game who just loved it, And it's been nice to see that online as well, to see people who were just like I just gave it a try because of Pedro Pascal. I just gave it a try, because of Bella Ramsey. I gave it a try because I like zombie stories.
And to see how drawn into this world they've been, even if they've never played the game, I think that's really a testament to how good the storytelling is if you can make it accessible to an audience who has no idea what Fedra is or Cordyceps or all of that stuff. The storytelling here is so smartly done and kind of sparse, but just tells you what you need to know. Yeah, I just I'm blown away by how good it is.
It did everything that an opening episode needs to do in it. It did. It's just in a way that just draws you in. It told you, in various dribs and drabs andvarious moments, what the emotional generator of the story is going to be, what the story itself is going to be how the world works, what the relationships with these characters are, what the economy like it fleshed
it out in really wonderful ways. The casting, we have to say, I mean we've talked about it with Nico Parker obviously, with Pedro Pascal, with Anaturv again, who she's so good.
That brought so much nuance in humanity to this like really brutal characters.
And the way that that first of all loved her and Fringe loved her in My Hunter, you know, like, but the way that time and time again, the first episode just subverts what you expect if you know the game, you know, tests again, you know, we we were set up to think that she's a psycho, but she's kind of the smarter one, kind of like the headier one,
giving you moments that happened before you respect them. The thing that you pointed out I think that was so smart, which is like you get these moments where they arrive at the Firefly safe house test and dol they take
their packs out. This feels like the game. They're getting all their stuff out of the pack, their guns, they're getting it right, and then they never do anything there's never the fact that there's no real moment of holy shit action with Tess and Joel at all, but you feel propelled for it, and you understand what hard asses they are, how fierce, and how dangerous they are, despite the fact that you never see a single fucking thing.
It's all about how they moved through the world and how people relate to them.
That is great, It's really cool, and it also is a really nice understanding of the difference between storytelling and a video game and storytelling and a TV show. You don't need to see them do all of that in the TV show constantly in the game. It is part of the action that keeps you going and not The choice I thought was so interesting was to have Joel kill the cue guard, not by shooting him, even though
because you know bullets they're very rare. In this game, you start with four, five, six, and you have to find them. You're looking through every door to find a bullet, you're picking it up and Joel's raw anger. Instead, he beats him to death, and that is again something that is directly taken from the game. You can regularly beat people to death and strangle them. But what I love here is instead of it just being like, oh, he's just that kind of guy. This is a moment of
it's emotional breakdown. This is a horrific act where he has killed someone that he had a vaguely chill relationship with because of this horrible memory.
It's it's a really it's a great point. And I love the way they throw it to to Bella's face there. Oh and you see how one how staggeringly violent this thing she had just seen, is how this thing Elliott just seen is, but also how it kind of cements it, like, Okay, I'm in. I'm not going to say safe hands. I'm not going to say good hands, but I'm in the kind of hands that you need in.
A way get me there. Let's just hope the fireflies have what they want because they will also kill me.
Yes, you know, I definitely want to see I want to just say, like I was really happy when I was reading the reviews after I watched the screen as like, I was really happy to see everyone shouting out Bella's performance because they're facerafting in this the news of.
What they put across with their eyes, the way they're able to embody this kind of teenage awkwardness and this kind of that faux confidence you have to have as a teenager to make it through the world. Let alone.
I think I'm own up already. I believe that I'm an adult already when it's very clear to everybody else that you're not.
Exactly. There's so much nuance in it. And Pedro's obviously, he's so amazing, like Petroscal, Like, no one's like, oh, he's not showing up next to Bella. No, he's absolutely brilliant. But for Bella to be able to shine the way they do next to him, that's just unbelievable. And I'm so excited to see that relationship, you know, enemies to parental figures or whatever the trope would be. I'm so
excited to see that expanded as we go on. Who doesn't love a lone wolf and cub type story, you know, and this is going to be such a special representation of it. And Yeah, I was just really blown away. I'm so excited to talk about this series as it goes on.
Yeah, I love the thing that you talked about because you know, when I was thirteen fourteen, I was like, oh, I'm a grown up now, I'm an adult, like I'm actually smarter than most adults. And then now when I see people who are thirteen, I'm like, you're a baby.
When I said twenty, I think that now because I'm so old, like it really, you know, what I.
Always think about that when I was a kid is like when you're in you know, in England we call it secondary school, but when you're in like middle school, and you see someone who is above you, who's like a senior or whatever, who's about to go to high school, and you think, oh, they're an adult. And then you get to that age, everyone above you looks like an adult,
and it just that constant cycle. And what I love about Bella's performances with Ellie, Ellie is always in that space of I can hold my own I'm an adult, I'm doing it, I'm old. But every so often there is a moment where she sees one of the adults doing something so horrific or so strange, and you get that look in her eye where she knows she's still
a child, just in this world. Also, I think it's very very interesting to start a show like this and start a story like this, same within the game, but to see it on TV of a character who remembers the old world and a character who's only a reference is the zombie. I think that is such a cool space in The Walking Dead. That took them years to get to the place where you can have a child who was built born there because of the way they told the story. Another thing I really loved about this
first episode. We talked about it, you know in your great recap is like the Ham Radio. I love this idea that in the economy of the post apocalypse, different people with different skills suddenly rise up the ranks in this world. The man with the ham radio, who can talk to people's families all over the world, he becomes like the most important man, the kingpin. You know, I
watched this. I read this absolutely brilliant Walking Dead comic by Tillie Walden, who's one of my favorite cartoonists, called Clementine, and there's a great bit in there about a man
who makes prosthetics. He trained himself how to make prosthetics because in the zombie Apocalypse that suddenly became something that everybody needed, especially in the Walking Dead, because you can chop off your limb and can survive the virus, so I love these kind of ideas of economy, like how does it work, what becomes valuable, what becomes Yeah, sure you can kill people. Actually that is a skill that
a lot of people are getting Joel tests. But what are the more mundane skills that you can bring that would you survive the zombie apocalypse? There's lots of memes like that, what are the five things you'd bring to like a post apocalyptic society? Like can you make bread? Can you farm? Do you know how to run a ham radio? Like a lot of us would be fucked. But I love those choices that slow burn world building choices.
I am so excited to see that expanded as we get outside, especially because I think that one of the things that we know from the reviews, from the way people are talking about this, this is a show that isn't afraid to move away from Joel and Ellie. We're going to get to see the wider world, the different people. We're going to get to see stories and characters expanded on who are just in the game for a moment and get to see them be brought to life. So I'm just really excited for it.
Same here, we're going to be covering The Last of Us on HBO Max a week to week, And of course we're going to be returning to our coverage of the video game The Last of Us video Game in weeks to come. That's it for this episode, Rosie. Anything to plug Just you.
Can hear us here two times a week. That's very cool. I will also be covering The Last of Us at IGN. I'm writing all those kind of good explainers. Obviously we're getting very close to Quantumania time. Yeah, so I got lots of theories about that, you know is I got some cool deep dives coming up in to you know, Polygon regarding Quantumania and the comics it's drawing from. Also, I just want to say Quas. You know, people are saying, could it be Quasar? It's the one for William Jackson Harper.
I think that is still a Richards who's just hiding his He's got to hide that, you know, his name, his place from Kang in the Quantum Room. So he made up a cool name, Quas. I still believe he's a Richard. Maybe read I'm moving towards.
It with you.
I think that would be really cool. So yeah, that's my theory.
Plug catch the next episode of X Revision Friday, January twenty said, is this Friday or a week catching up on the bed? Betch folks?
Yeah, and you know it. Subscribe to us on YouTube, follow at XRV pod on Twitter where we're always retweeting cool stuff, responding to theories and call tattoos. So send us all of those. Check out discord. The discord is so much fun. We reference it a lot because me and Jason are always in there. There's a ton of great fans talking about all this cool stuff, breaking down theories, given book recommendations. It's a total joint. There's also like
sports in there, so really covering everything. If you're a Jason fan, you'll love our discord.
We had a watch party. We had a watch party for the last of Us where we were in there the reacting with people on West Coast time mostly who were watching the show along with us. Five star reviews, five star ratings. We need them, we gotta have them, we want them. Here's one from Nematon, the real world impact of our stories. Jason and Rosie are two of the most humble, funny, and kind creative storytellers in the business.
I'm blushing.
From the latest blockbuster, the super niche comic Deep Dives. These two cover plot synopsis, easter eggs, theorizing, and most importantly, the real world impact of the stories we're currently watching a reading. Thank you so much, Nematon's.
Lovely and also we love nedouts. They're some of our favorite things. We love them. The Discord loves them. But we also know that, like us, you have a lot of theories and want to share them. We get them when we do mail bags, we love to hear them, we get them in our dms. So now nodouts will also be a place for you to share your theories as well as your favorite you know, shows, movies, comic books.
More So, send us your weirdest, most tinfoiliest fan theories in a two minute or left voice memo to x ray at cricket dot com and we will discuss them on the show.
X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lorden Sol Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Grohard are editing in Sound designers by Vascillis Fotopoulos, Dylon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex Rella for handle social media. Thank you Brian Vesquez for the music That's it. See us Friday.
Bye,